The Scarlet Nightingale
by GreenFinchAndLinnetBird
Summary: Eh, if I write this is partly Carlotta's story I'll lose potential readers. And yes, while that is true, the Phantom has a major place in this story too, when he meets a certain person Carlotta knows.


This is a story I've been wanting to write for so long, and I hope you enjoy it. It tells the story of Carlotta, but also the Phantom's going to appear and a romance might spark...Not between Erik and _Carlotta,_ ewwww. I'll leave who it is as a surprise. :P

Please review, and yes, partly this is Carlotta's story, but don't let that put you off. The Phantom has a big part too.

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**_The Scarlet Nightingale._**

**Chapter One.**

Litter scattered in the light wind as the raven-haired woman made her way down the street. It was early dawn, and the sky seemed to reflect her mood. The pearl coloured clouds barely had any colour besides a slight hint of pale pink from the newly born dawn. They looked diminished and rinsed out like a white bed sheet that had been flattened by the hand wringer on a washing machine. All of her insides felt the same in a manner of speaking, that they had been compressed, twisted and mangled. She had felt the deepest of sorrow and anguish, such agony that she would not wish on any man – well, _almost_ any…If they ever found the man they called a Ghost she would surely destroy him.

What she felt was a dull ache now in the core of her stomach, but she wasn't sure if she was really numb or whether that was from the drugs prescribed by her physician.

_Oh, Ubaldo…_

Oh, here it was. The engulfing and vicious misery that caught her – as usual – unaware and unprepared. Her gloved hands clasped her stomach and she was almost bent double as a whimper escaped her. She had no respite from the images that continually entertained her, of her adored lover found cold and dead after the Phantom dropped the chandelier. She cried as once again she thought of his poor body that had surely writhed hopelessly from being strangled to death, with nobody to help him. She couldn't stop herself; she was on her knees, on her knees far from Paris, in the provincial town that a little girl with a different name and a different future mapped out ahead of her used to live. She could barely remember the name that little girl – she herself – had had. It was a horrible, unadorned name for the lonely young girl. _Zita._

She had changed from the little slip of a child who used to run barefoot on the streets and in the woods by her home with tangled hair and dirty knees. She was unrecognisable now, in her silks and jewels. She would never be Zita again.

But the town was unrecognisable too. Industry had finally crept its way here in the Italian village. There were factories now and even a small theatre where once there had been barely paved roads and shabby markets. She straightened purposefully, and began to walk again, in spite of the tears that burned her eyelashes. Oh, it was just as well nobody could see the stains they made, with the lace veil placed over her eyes.

She wasn't wearing black – and that wasn't just because she had never been Ubaldo Piangi's wife. Oh, she had been his wife in every way that truly counted. She thought with disgust at the horrid little widower witch with her horrid spawn standing self-righteously at his memorial service (women were not permitted at the funeral or graveside burial and had to contend with trifling commemorative services). Playing the victim as always, looking at Carlotta pained like a good Catholic martyr, her hand covering her mouth in shame that her husband's whore had dared attend. She hadn't kept his bed warm in years and the strain of her nagging had caused him to find comfort in rich food and wine. No, no, she wasn't wearing black because of _propriety,_ though she knew that that's what the woman would be thinking. She was wearing scarlet – Ubaldo had always loved her in bright, opulent colours. Magenta, gold, burnt orange…

She had been wearing bright red at his memorial service. His scarlet nightingale.

She took out the crumpled note from her purse and stared at the address some more. So many things had changed, that she was surprised her brother still lived in the same house she had lived in with her other siblings. She wondered where they all were, the other eight, all surely scattered in the wind.

She walked and she walked and she walked to the little hut that stood jaggedly like a broken tooth just outside of the main town. The roof was thatched and the walls seemed like at any given moment they could cave in. But it had always been like that, so it never would. Oh the creaking that house made at night in the wind, as if the house itself was mourning its unsightliness.

She looked horribly out of place, she knew, but that was the point of this visit. She wanted him to remember her, and later on when memory diminished a little, for her riches to be embellished in his thoughts. It's fascinating, how memory works – whenever an opera bored its audience to death, their weariness would be forgotten afterwards when any critic of worth gave it their approval. Then all of a sudden everybody would be raving and they would forget that they had hated it. Stupid, fickle, ignorant people. Oh, her brother would forget most of the details of this day, but he would remember and exaggerate her prosperity.

She knocked on the door and waited, as a young girl opened the door. Her big dark eyes stared up at the well-dressed lady and in fright she closed it straightaway. Impatiently Carlotta rapped on the door again, and another girl answered. An older one. Carlotta smiled instantly, ah – this was the type of girl she was after. She had beautiful, soft, gentle features and a figure that when dressed up in the latest fashion would cause mens' eyes to take a second glance at her.

She was inwardly pleased but her voice sounded impatient, "Is Signor Giordano here?"

The girl curtsied clumsily as she answered that no, he was out at work.

_Work?_ The drunk bastard was _working?_

"I will wait here until he returns then," Carlotta pushed her way in and rolled her eyes at how quickly all of the young children rushed about to wipe the table and pull out a chair, and put a cushion on the chair and sort through the crockery to find some that wasn't broken so the strange lady could have some tea.

Carlotta paced that small room after ignoring the chair they offered, mulling things over. It had taken her brother mere moments to sell her to strangers all those years ago, surely he would jump at the chance to sell his pretty daughter too, especially with the amount of gold she was offering. But she was still anxious, still desperate to see him again.

It was very soft, her humming, but she heard the girl making tea. And she closed her eyes, weeping again and loathing the Phantom even more.


End file.
